Washington D.C. — Federal officials will take the unprecedented step of asserting oversight over the software that operates self-driving vehicles when they publish a set of autonomous vehicle guidelines Tuesday, the White House said.

This is the federal government's first attempt to regulate the emerging technology, which is already on the road in some parts of the country. Officials hailed the potential of the technology to save lives by reducing crashes.

"We're saying that when the software is operating the vehicle, that is an area that we intend to regulate, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said on a call with reporters Monday in which he outlined the regulations. Details will come Tuesday.

"When a human being is operating the vehicle, the traditional laws that have conventionally applied will still apply."

Regulators say they will use their existing authority to investigate and recall automated vehicles that pose a risk to public safety, and will look to Congress for the tools to aid in that enforcement and regulation.

The federal guidelines — known as the Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles — come as Michigan and other states attempt to amend regulations to allow automakers and tech companies such as Google Inc. to test and ultimately operate autonomous vehicles without drivers.

Foxx noted that, under the new framework, states would continue to handle the "human" aspects of operating a vehicle, such as licensing drivers, registering vehicles and regulating liability and insurance questions, officials said.

Federal officials are suggesting policy areas for states to consider with the goal of generating symmetry among the states for the testing and deployment of autonomous vehicles.

The federal guidelines are meant to outline best practices for the safe design, development and testing of automated vehicles prior to commercial sale or operation on public roads.

They lay out a 15-point safety assessment for manufacturers developing and deploying automated vehicle technologies that range from data recording and sharing of information, to vehicle cybersecurity protocols.

"We have to have a level of confidence that those issues, each one of the 15, have been independently reviewed, evaluated and confirmed." Foxx said. "That's what we're after. "It's really creating a more open-ended type of approach than we typically would" see.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is also trying to be more developer-friendly: The rule-making agency has agreed to expedite responses to requests for exemptions from existing standards to accommodate designs for autonomous vehicles to six months. Historically, those responses could take years.